


Our Endless Numbered Days

by SteadyAsSheGoes



Category: Titanic (1997)
Genre: 7 were saved from the water, A lot of pillow talk, Alternate Ending, Easter Eggs, F/M, Jack Dawson Lives, Jack Dawson survives (but not forever), Pillow Talk, Titanic alternate ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-14 19:33:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29051436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SteadyAsSheGoes/pseuds/SteadyAsSheGoes
Summary: An alternate ending, in which Jack survives the sinking and they face the years together.--Rose has often found herself splitting things into the befores and the afters. Before her father died, and after. Before her mother found the gambling debts, and after. Before the water, and after.She used to long for the befores. Now, the afters are all she wants.
Relationships: Jack Dawson/Rose DeWitt Bukater
Comments: 5
Kudos: 30





	1. After the Bombs [1913]

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this ages ago but I’ve never posted anything. Pandemic restlessness and a nostalgic rewatch (my first in about eight years - yikes) made me think about it again. 
> 
> It’s a series of 5 vignettes, an alternate ending and a prequel of sorts. The title is borrowed from the name of an Iron & Wine album. 
> 
> It’s cheesy and there are probably some historical inaccuracies, but I hope you like it all the same.

Rose stands at the window in her nightgown, watching the trees sway with the breeze. It’s nearly springtime. Nearly April again. She dreads it, even as she can feel herself reaching for it. She wants it to be behind her. She wants to make room for the things that will come next. 

Rose has often found herself splitting things into the befores and the afters. Before her father died, and after. Before her mother found the gambling debts, and after. Before the water, and after. 

She used to long for the befores. Now, the afters are all she wants. 

She turns her eyes to the black sky, scattered with stars. The sky here is different than the sky had seemed there. Back when she couldn’t tell if she was drowning in the sea or in the sky. Back when she didn’t know if they were alive or dead. 

When she thinks about it now, she can hardly remember it. Being in the water. The things she knows for certain are the things that had come after it. 

By the time they’d reached New York, Jack had lost two toes to frostbite. A miracle, considering how long he'd been in the water. Rose had known the officers had only rowed back for him to placate her as she stared on, frozen and wild-eyed and maybe screaming. The men in the boat had thought it was a recovery, but not rescue. They thought Rose’s mind had gone, and perhaps it had. 

She knows they had pitied her. But their pity had saved Jack’s life. 

It had taken him days to come around, and the first thing he did was ask if she was all right. The question was enough to bring her to tears, but she'd nodded, holding his icy hand to her cheek. He was huddled on a hard, rickety cot in the _Carpathia_ 's crew quarters. It was near the boilers, the warmest place they’d been able to find. When Jack could speak without his teeth chattering, he’d whispered that it was preferable to his previous accommodations. 

He was lucky, the ship's medic had told them. They all were.

Still, lucky or not, it was clear that something was wrong. _Pneumonia_ , that same medic had warned just before they arrived in the harbor. _You'd better get yourself to a doctor, son._ But there was no money for a doctor, and for weeks, Jack tried to hide it from her: his near-constant shivering, the way he got winded when walking and talking at the same time, his unsteady, off balance gait. There had been a night almost as frightening as the one in the sea when she found him lying on the boarding house floor, collapsed from fever and exhaustion. Rose had sat with his head cradled in her lap and the enormous stowaway diamond clenched in her hand. She would have sold it and risked them being discovered then and there if kind Mrs. Holden down the hall hadn't offered them proper medicine for nothing in return. 

Then - slowly, somehow - Jack came back to her again, and by summertime he seemed to have come back to himself, strong and sure.

By then they'd saved enough to move out of the boarding house and into a tiny tenement apartment of their own. Jack had found steady work with the metalworkers across town, and Rose busied herself with odd cleaning and washing jobs around the neighborhood. She set to the task of creating a home for them and life began to find a new rhythm. Sometimes she would meet Jack outside the foundry and the two of them would walk home together, Rose tucked in close beside him. Other times he'd come home and surprise her with a picked flower or two and kiss her hungrily before peeling off her clothes.

One sweltering evening, a man began to play a violin on the corner beneath their window. Jack pulled Rose close and they danced around the small room, spinning in slow, careful circles. Rose closed her eyes and traced her fingers over the calluses of his hands, remembering the first time they'd danced together, another world and another life away. She wondered if Jack was thinking about that too as he buried his nose in her hair, which Rose was certain smelled of sweat and city grime.

Suddenly he pulled back and when Rose opened her eyes, he was looking at her with a strange expression. She'd seen it on his face before, months ago, and then Rose understood that he was _nervous_. But what on earth was there to be nervous about now, here on solid ground?

"Marry me," he said. His voice was husky but certain. His hand darted into his pocket and returned with a flash of metal that had been polished to a gleam and molded into a band.

Rose gawked. He must have made it himself in secret, during his working hours - a risk, to be sure. But no more of a risk than the ones they'd already taken. No more than the one they were living.

"I know it's not like the one you had," he said, before she could find her voice. They almost never talked about it - what she'd had before. A flush of pink was beginning to creep up his neck toward his ears. He still held the ring in the center of his trembling palm. "But - "

"Yes," she breathed. She snatched the ring and slid it onto her finger, where it glinted in the light of the setting sun. Her old engagement ring had threatened to sink her. This one made her feel as though she could fly. "Yes, yes, of course, yes."

He'd looked so happy then - a mix of relief and excitement and hope so contagious it made Rose laugh. She laughed until he did, too, and the sounds of their joy flooded out the open window and into the warm air beyond.

They were married on August 15, four months to the day since they were pulled from the Atlantic's icy grasp. It wasn't anything like the wedding she and her mother had planned in Philadelphia. She and Jack stood before a judge in their plain work-stained clothes, wide grins on their faces and their hands clasped tight. That night Rose had beamed at him - her husband - as he swept her into his arms and carried her into their apartment before making love to her on their flimsy, narrow bed.

And then, as the city began to cool, both of them realized they had no intention of being cold ever again. Besides, there were plans to make and promises to keep. They sold all of the possessions they'd managed to accumulate in New York - everything except Jack's charcoal, the band around her finger, and the once-doomed necklace - and headed west.

They arrived in California just before the start of the new year, taking a small attic apartment above the home of a slightly older couple. 

Rose helps clean and cares for the landlord's children while Jack finds work in town nearby. Sometimes on Sundays she watches him draw portraits at the pier near the beach. He'd started drawing again before they left New York, with his bride posing for him whenever he asked.

Now, Rose crosses from the window to the bed, and she watches him as he sleeps. She remembers what it was like in those first few hours and days after their rescue, waiting to discover whether he'd stay with her or go somewhere beyond her reach. She’d spent that time willing him to stay alive, willing him to stay. 

Rose smooths a lock of hair from his face. For a while, after that night in the boarding house, she’d been petrified every time he fell asleep. She remembers lying awake, listening to the air rattle precariously inside his tired lungs, and willing his heart to keep beating. 

She listens for it now, that comforting steady rhythm. It’s here, just like the rest of him. She slips back beneath the sheets and presses herself to him. 

He’s warm. So is she.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title credit: "After the Bombs" [The Decemberists]


	2. Ends of the Earth [1917]

Jack pauses on the street. He can see Rose through the window of their tiny rented bungalow, bustling around the kitchen in the dusky evening light. They've been in California for nearly five years, but coming home to her still calls the memory of the first time he saw her. The sight of her can steal his breath now just as easily as it had then. He slides his hand into his pocket, fingering the small velvet box nestled there.

He'd finally sold his first big commission, and even though it was just a series of portraits for a rich old lady in Highland Park, it was enough to buy this for Rose. It still isn't the ring she deserves, but it's better than scrap metal by a mile. On his own finger, Jack wears a simple gold band. Rose had sold most of her hair for it somewhere in the Great Plains. She'd presented it to him one night as they curled together in their makeshift tent under the stars and he hasn't taken it off since.

He takes another breath of the sweet bougainvillea-scented air and strides up the path. He still limps a bit now and then, mostly at the end of the day, and his balance will never be what it was. But none of that really matters. The only thing that does matter is that he gets to be here with her. 

Rose is standing over the stove, poking at something with a wooden spoon. Her cooking's gotten better over the past few years, but Jack always happily devours whatever she makes, even when it's burnt to a crisp. He wraps his arms around her and she turns to kiss him, threading her fingers up through his hair.

The newspaper is open on the table, most of its headlines describing the fighting a world away. Jack had managed to avoid the war because of the amputated toes missing from his left foot. When he'd come home after reporting for registration, Rose had met him at the door, her skin worried pale. Jack had held up his discharge papers and smiled through his own relief.

"Lucky ticket strikes again," he'd said before Rose launched herself into his arms, burying her face in his neck. 

Now, she does that again, her lips tracing over his sweaty skin. Jack reaches to cup her face, her skin still smooth as porcelain.

"I have something for you," he says.

"Oh?" Rose asks. One eyebrow arches upwards, an expression she sometimes borrows from him.

"But you have to close your eyes," Jack says. "And give me your hand."

"Why?" Rose asks, narrowing her eyes.

"You don't trust me anymore?" Jack teases, tipping his face down so their foreheads touch.

"Always," Rose relents. She closes her eyes and holds her hand out, palm up.

Jack gently turns her hand over and begins to slide the thin iron band from her ring finger. Rose’s eyes fly open.

"What are you - "

"Trust me," he reminds her. After a moment, she closes her eyes again. Jack reaches into his pocket and thumbs open the box. He slips the new ring over her skin, watching as it catches the light. It's simple, with a tiny diamond resting in its center. The stone is a speck compared to the one Rose had worn when they first met, but it means something to him that he was able to buy this for her.

"Alright," Jack says, even though Rose's eyes are already open. "What do you think?"

"It's beautiful," she says. There's something uncertain in her voice as she looks at it. "It's exquisite. Really, Jack. But you didn't have to. I already have a ring."

"You have a piece of metal that wouldn't even pay for dinner," Jack corrects her. She looks back up at him, and there's that flash of stubbornness in her eyes. The one that lights the familiar heat in his chest.

"I love that ring," she says, reaching for his closed fist. She wheedles it open and grasps at the iron. "I love it because you gave it to me and you _made_ it and it doesn't matter what something costs or doesn't cost."

With sinking dread, he realizes that he's managed to reopen this old wound, a particular hurt for her. After all this time, she still worries about what he would think of her. Still runs from that poor little rich girl she sees crouching somewhere in her shadow.

"I know," he says, imploring his brain to work faster than his mouth for once. "I wanted to get you something nice. Nicer. You can wear both of them." Jack lifts his chin and arranges his face into a haughty imitation of someone else. "Like a proper married lady."

Rose's heat melts into a smile and she gives in. "Well, that's what I am after all. Thank you."

Her hand reaches up to tug at his collar, pulling his face down toward hers again. She traces her fingers along his jaw as Jack pulls her tight to him. Her face may still be smooth, but her hands have hardened with work. Her fingertips tickle as they move along his cheek.

"I have a surprise for you, too," she says, her voice just above a whisper.

"What's that?" he asks, eyes already half closed.

Rose takes his hand and guides it slowly down to her belly. She pauses there and then Jack feels it. A tiny movement, a ripple of a kick.

"Really?" he asks.

Rose nods almost shyly. They'd been careful at first, when they had nothing, barely enough for themselves. Then they'd been less careful and finally downright daring, but nothing like this had happened before. Sometimes it made Rose cry. She blamed herself or she blamed the water. All that time in the cold - who knew what it could do to a body? There was nothing for Jack to do but hold her and promise to love her, even if it was just the two of them. But now, here was the promise of someone else.

Jack looks at her now, her face awash in the rosy glow of the dying daylight. It seems that everything and nothing about her has changed. The most wonderful woman he's ever known, his wife, soon to be the mother of his child. The girl who'd saved him just as surely as she'd saved herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title Credit: "Ends of the Earth" [Lord Huron]


	3. Gods & Monsters [1929]

Rose is sitting alone at the kitchen table, staring out the window above the sink but seeing nothing. The newspaper sits open in front of her, a familiar face glaring out from its pages.

The door bangs open and Lottie runs inside. Jack is close behind her, with Molly riding on his shoulders. Billy, ever the adventurer like his father, teeters after them on wobbly legs.

Jack's brow furrows at the sight of her, dazed and staring, and he lifts Molly down to the floor.

"Why don't the three of you go wash up for dinner," he suggests.

"Will you come with us?" Molly asks. She's got Jack's eyes, all of his blue-green mischief and confidence.

"She's scared. She thinks there's a monster that lives in our closet," Lottie says, rolling her eyes at her little sister.

"I'm not scared," Molly says, hands on her hips, chin tipped up in a way that Rose recognizes.

"Then what do you need me for?" Jack teases. He rubs the tip of her nose with his thumb. "No monsters in this house, Miss Molly."

Molly seems comforted by this, and she and Lottie each take one of Billy's hands, leading him toward the staircase. Once their footsteps thump above them, Jack turns back to the table, where his eyes find the newspaper. Caledon Hockley stares back at him.

"Except for that one," Jack mumbles under his breath, sneaking another glance back up at Rose. "Are you all right?"

"He's dead," Rose says simply. A weight she’s long since gotten used to has dropped from her shoulders. Dead at 47, a gun in his mouth two weeks after the crash. Jack's hands rest on her shoulders, his fingers gently kneading at her skin. She puts one of her hands on his and squeezes.

"Any regrets?" he asks, risking a joke. "You could’ve been a rich widow."

"Jack," she groans, twisting to look at him. His mouth is set in an unsure line, but there's the usual tenderness in his eyes. Rose looks back at the newsprint. "Not so rich, anyway."

"Well, take it from me," Jack says, sitting beside her. "There are worse things than being broke."

"We're all right," Rose says. That nagging old insecurity is still there, she realizes, scabbed over and knitted together inside of him like a scar.

"Of course we are," Jack agrees. He brings her hand to his lips and kisses it.

"What about you?" she asks, voicing her own long-buried insecurity. "Any regrets?"

"None," he says, and she can see at once that he means it. Even though she's slowed him down. Even though she'd tethered herself to him like roots. He grins as footsteps rush down the stairs.

That night a chill creeps into the house. The children are asleep, curled up under extra blankets as a California cold snap settles around them. Rose has gone to her hiding place in the bathroom, and is holding the Heart of the Ocean in her hand. It's still here, still theirs, having outlived Cal and maybe her mother too.

It's been a long time since she's felt truly hunted. She can remember, once, during that New York summer, she thought she'd spied Cal's valet following her down Delancey Street as she walked home one afternoon. And even though she'd seen his name listed among the deceased, Rose had still felt sheer terror twisting her insides. When Jack arrived home hours later, he could tell she'd been crying and he promised to stay awake all night, just watching the door.

She's never told Jack, but she's carried that fear of Cal and his reach all this time. She feared him the way Molly fears monsters in the closet or under the bed, afraid that one day, when she let her guard down, he'd emerge from the shadows grinning the way he had on the boat deck that last night. It was why she'd always refused when Jack urged her to audition for the pictures being filmed a few miles away. She could imagine him, seeing her photograph on a movie poster and tracking her here. She can still remember the wild hate in his eyes as he aimed his pistol at Jack’s head.

Rose slips the necklace back behind the loose tiles beside the sink and stands to look at herself in the mirror. She looks mostly the same as she had the last time she saw him: same red hair, same wide blue eyes, albeit with a few more wrinkles around them.

Jack is climbing into bed when she returns to their bedroom. She slips into the bed beside him and he pulls the blankets over her.

"Warm enough?"

He still asks her that when they get into bed on chilly nights. She thinks about that night in the water when she didn't believe she could ever be warm enough again.

"Mhmm," she says now, one cheek resting on his chest. His heartbeat pulses against her skin, keeping time.

"You know," Jack says quietly, "now that he's gone, you could go in and read for one of those pictures."

Rose jerks her face up to look at him. He's wearing that unsure smile again.

"You knew?" she asks.

"'Course I knew," he says, the smile blooming into a boyish grin. "I know you."

"You never said."

"Did you want me to?" It's a real question. He wants to know.

"No," she says. "But now..."

"Now what?" he asks when she goes quiet.

"I'm a mother," she says, beginning to tick off the reasons. "I'm 34. I have wrinkles."

Beside her, Jack snorts. "And you're crazy, don't forget that one."

"I'm serious."

"So am I," Jack says. Then the laughter fades from his voice. "You trust me, right?"

This is familiar territory. "You know I do."

"Then believe me when I say you can do anything you want. Besides, you're still the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."

"Maybe back then," she scoffs.

Jack shakes his head. "Then, now, always." 

She leans down to kiss him then, breathing him in as she does. He still smells the same, like rain and tobacco and ink.

"I love you," she says. She's loved him for half her life.

"I love you too." Jack's fingers extinguish the light and then they're in darkness together. Jack's arms slip around her, pulling her close. The last thing Rose thinks about before she falls asleep is his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title credit: "Gods & Monsters" [Lana Del Rey]


	4. Never Quite Free [1936]

"Make a wish."

There are two cakes on the table in front of them, one chocolate, one lemon. Candles flicker as Lottie and Jack each take a breath. Molly counts to three and then they're off.

Jack watches his oldest daughter smile at him through the smoke from across the table. This is an old ritual, and maybe it's the last time they'll do it. Jack thinks that if it is, he'll be sure to remember it. She's beautiful, older now than her mother was when they first met.

Charlotte had been born 18 years ago, on his 26th birthday. Though she'd been named for Jack's mother, she'd had Rose's red hair and full pink lips even then. Now she's grown up and she wants to go to college. Jack is determined to see that happen, even if he has no idea how they'll pay for it. He thinks of the massive blue diamond, still hidden away. Rose thinks they can do it without that, and she may be right. She's just finished her third film, her biggest role yet. He's so proud of her he could burst.

Rose carries the cakes back to the kitchen to slice them and Jack looks around the table at his children. Hardly children anymore, at 18, 14, and 10.

"Who wants what?" he asks, even though he already knows. Chocolate for Lottie, lemon for Molly, and a slice of each for Billy.

He rises from the table and follows Rose into the kitchen.

"Go on and sit, birthday boy," she says, looking over her shoulder. "I'll be out in a minute."

Rose has always made a big deal out of his birthday, maybe because she knows how close he'd come to not having any after 1912. The three in the dining room don't know about that, though. No one in their current life does.

"You sit, I've got it," he says.

Rose holds up a finger smeared with lemon icing and Jack leans toward her to lick it.

"Best it's ever been," he says, meaning it.

"You say that every year."

"Because it's true every year."

Jack grips her around the waist and spins her around so she's facing him. Her blue eyes sparkle as she looks at him and he suddenly feels nostalgic for the time when it was just the two of them. He'd gladly swing her into his arms and take her to bed right now if she’d let him. 

Rose looks like she’s fighting a wicked grin. Somehow, she knows exactly what he's thinking.

"Later," she whispers conspiratorially.

She keeps her word. Afterwards, they both stretch out on the bed, tired and near-drunk with pleasure. A truly excellent birthday.

Rose settles her head into the space between his shoulder and elbow and sighs with contentment. After a while, Jack wonders if she's fallen asleep, but then she turns to look at him again.

"Did you ever think we'd be this lucky?" she asks.

"Lucky, yes. This lucky, maybe."

They're both thinking about it now. _Titanic_ , with all her wonders and horrors. Jack tries to shake himself out of it, but he can feel it throbbing beneath his skin like an old scar.

"Do you think we should tell them?"

It's an odd question from her. Rose usually chooses to skip around it altogether, preferring their carefully edited version to the truth. In the fantasy, they'd met in New York and Jack had swept her off her feet with his talent, good looks, and charm. There'd been no sinking ship, no knife-sharp water, no floating in a sea of death and grief.

For Jack's part, he's tried to raise their children with a balance of honesty and protection. He hadn't wanted them to have to know all that he'd had to learn. But Molly is nearing the age he'd been when his parents had died and he'd been left alone, and he wonders if maybe they should be prepared for all the pain the world could inflict.

"I don't know," he says.

He knows they could find out on their own. Especially Lottie, as whip-smart as she is. One day, the stories wouldn't add up and she'd go looking. Their names had been recorded somewhere. He knows that would be worse than telling her.

"I worry about her," Rose says. "Going out on her own."

"Lottie? She'll be all right. She's got a good head on her shoulders. Like someone else I know."

Rose sighs. "I was so young. So naive. If I hadn't met you..."

She stops talking then and Jack can see it, clear as if it were hours ago instead of decades. Rose, trapped and broken, about to let go and disappear into the blackened sea.

"But you did, and we made it through, and so will Lottie. Molly and Billy too."

"You really think so?"

"I know so."

Jack kisses the top of Rose's head, still a little damp with sweat. They'll tell Lottie before she leaves, he decides. Maybe Molly too. In a few years, they'll tell Billy. It will be better for the kids to hear it from them, and maybe it will be good to tell the story. He could tell them about Fabri, the best friend he's ever known. He could tell them about their mother, how they'd saved each other again and again. About how she'd given up everything to give him a home and a place to belong. A story of hope and survival and resilience. The story of how they became who they are. The story of how the bravest, most beautiful girl in the world came to be his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title credit: "Never Quite Free" [The Mountain Goats]


	5. Time Will Tell [1960 - 1996]

In the end, it's his heart.

She supposes that perhaps she should have known that's what it would be. There'd been a doctor some time ago who had warned them. The cold, the exposure, the fevers all those years ago had weakened his heart forever. Maybe that’s why she had spent so much time feeling for it, listening to it. But with each passing year it had seemed so constant, so certain. The strongest part of him. At some point, Rose had let her guard down and the monster had pounced.

The first attack had come when he was only 48. There was some grey near his temples but not much. It had been right after they'd returned from watching Lottie graduate from Wellesley, a trip that had been full of sunshine and sweetness. Then Rose found him sprawled out on the grass in the backyard, his drawing paper and supplies scattered out around him and a dazed look in his eyes.

"You're not rid of me yet," he'd said when she was finally allowed to see him at the hospital. "I told you I'm a survivor."

His boyish smile had made her weep, right there in the room next to his bed. He asked her if she was all right and it was just like it had been so many years ago. She couldn't lose him, not yet. Casting all dignity aside, she’d slid onto the bed beside him and squeezed his hands like their lives depended on it.

Ten years later, it happened again. This time, he'd known what was happening and had called out before he crashed to the floor. Billy, home for a visit, had reached him first, slumped in a corner of his studio, a room that had once been Billy's bedroom.

Once again, he'd cracked jokes from a hospital bed while Rose cried beside him. She would never be ready. She suspected he wouldn't be, either.

He joked about it again after another decade had gone by, as he and Rose lay in bed in the dark.

"I'm due," he'd said, and this time she could hear the fear at the edge of his voice.

One night in mid-April - _that_ night in mid-April - Rose is lying next to him, watching the minutes tick away on the clock beside the bed. Jack is dozing, his heart beating steadily beneath her hand. On this night 48 years ago, she had almost lost him. She can still hear his voice, frozen stiff like the rest of them, telling her not to let go. Making her promise.

Jack startles awake then. It's been a long time since either of them has had a nightmare, but she knows that's what this is. Was he dreaming about it? The black water, its cold teeth biting through him? Falling toward it so fast they barely had time to breathe? She reaches for his hand as he tries to get his bearings.

"Rose!" He whispers her name urgently. For a moment, she can see a much younger version of herself, underwater, reaching for him as he's pulled away from her.

"I'm here," she says. "I'm right here."

He sighs and pulls her in close. He's trembling, afraid and unguarded.

"You're all right," she tells him. Reminds him. It's not like it was then. They're safe and they're warm and they're together. She realizes he's not the only one who needs reminding.

"I love you," he says. "I've always loved you. I don't know why I didn't tell you that night."

He knows why and so does she. She understands now why he's always tried so hard to bury his fear, and hearing it so naked like this is more frightening than almost anything else. She decides to adopt his method and try a joke.

"You've told me plenty since. You made up for it."

The tension goes out of his shoulders at that and he takes a breath that steadies him. Steadies them both.

"Were you dreaming about it?" she asks.

"I was."

"48 years," she muses.

"Maybe when we hit 50 it'll feel far away."

She wonders if that could be possible. She remembers what it was like during that first year, how a part of her believed moving past the anniversary would make it lose its power. 

"Rosie?" He only calls her that sometimes, usually in the dark. Her breath hitches. Suddenly _he_ feels far away. "I don't want you to be alone. When I go."

"So don't go.”

He breathes out half a laugh. She supposes that maybe it's natural for people their age to talk about these things. But that doesn't make it any better.

"I mean it." Jack turns to look at her. His face is creased with deep lines now and his hair is stark white. But his eyes are the same and she still sees the boy he’d been. "In fact, I want you to promise me."

It echoes of another plea, one lost to memory and time, and it threatens to freeze her blood.

"Jack - "

"Please," he says. "I need to know that you'll be all right. No matter what happens."

She wouldn't be. Not without him. He has to know that.

"I promise," she hears herself say, and she knows she has to mean it now. "I'll have the kids and the grandkids. Of course, I could be hit by a bus tomorrow."

"Don't you dare," he says, but she can hear his relief. 

"We shouldn’t talk like this," she says, once it's quiet again. Her fingers skim over his wrist and up toward the curve of his elbow. After all this time, she knows his body as well as she knows her own. 

"Once a year," he says. "Until it feels far away."

"Deal," Rose says, settling back on the pillow. She feels his lips graze her forehead and then she's reaching for him as though they're in their twenties again.

He kisses her, soft and sweet, and then she nestles her head on his chest again. She waits until he falls asleep first. 

In the morning, she knows he's gone before she opens her eyes. The steady rhythm is gone, too, leaving his chest still and cool. She wonders if she can will it to start again, wonders if she can will him back to her like she had before. She lays beside him for a long while, whispering to him until sunlight peeks through the curtains and her tears are dry. She'd gotten 48 extra years with him, but it's not enough, and it's another reason to hate April 15.

Months later, on what would have been her 48th wedding anniversary, Rose moves in with Molly, who is no longer a Dawson but a Calvert. Molly's husband John has turned their third floor into her own private apartment. But Rose, having never lived alone, spends most of her nights sleeping in her granddaughters' bedroom. She knows now why Jack made her promise.

Her own children never had grandparents, and, maybe to make up for this, Rose dotes on her grandchildren. She teaches them how to cook and how to sew, how to make her famous lemon cake and how to catch fish in the creek, how to skip stones, and how to spit, much to their mother's chagrin.

By the time little Lizzy turns ten, she has declared that Nana is her favorite person in the world. Lizzy is a budding artist, and Rose gifts her with Jack's old supplies. Lizzy draws everything and everyone who will sit for her, and Rose can tell that she has inherited Jack's ability to see into people.

It's comforting to see him in their children and grandchildren like that. But sometimes it hurts. It hurts like skin picked raw, like a stone stuck in her throat. Now her life stretches into an endless sea of afters, vast and grey and cold. 

She takes up pottery because making things makes her feel close to him. The attic apartment becomes her studio, and when her legs become too stiff to reliably climb stairs, the studio moves to the sunroom off Lizzy's kitchen.

Memories of him still play in a constant movie-reel in her head: the way he'd looked at her that first night; shaking the sandy hair from his eyes as he drew the lines of her body; rocking Lottie in his arms as an infant; his hands teaching Billy to sketch; dancing with Molly on her wedding day. If she concentrates, she can still hear his laughter, his voice singing dreadfully off-key. Rose is afraid that when those things fade, all of him will truly be gone.

It wouldn't have been enough, she knows, not ever. Not 50 years, not 80 or 100. She still talks to him, now and again. She makes jokes so he can see that she's all right. Not whole, not satisfied, but all right. She tries to arrange her life into the kind of picture he would have created for her. 

She's almost 101 when Lizzy invites a boyfriend to the house for Thanksgiving dinner. She’s seen him before, on television, talking about a ghost.

Rose remembers when they found it. It had been on every news station for a while. Grainy, greenish pictures of the thing that had nearly become her grave. She'd thought about pointing out the place where she and Jack had met or where they'd shared their first kiss, but she'd thought better of it. It was something else now.

Brock's hair is a shade too long and a few shades too light, and she can only imagine what Jack would have said about the gold hoop dangling from his ear. Rose pauses in the hallway, feeling the weight of the heavy stone in her pocket. Brock is staring at the gallery wall in Lizzy's entryway, at the framed pieces of her grandfather's artwork. Most of them are paintings, bright flashes of color and heat, but he's recognized the signature by now, Rose is sure.

"I was wondering if they’ve found the Heart of the Ocean yet," Rose says, startling him.

Brock turns, his eyes wide and hungry. "Mrs. Dawson," he says.

"Rose," she corrects.

"Rose.” He stares at her, and she can feel his eyes searching for traces of the girl she once was. “No, they haven't. We haven't."

"So you're a treasure hunter, then?"

"Something like that." 

“My late husband’s,” she says proudly, pointing to the wall behind him. And then, “I take it that you _have_ found my drawing."

He's gawking at her and Rose tries not to smile. A sure-footed man caught off balance is still a sight to see.

"Lizzy told me you were on _Titanic_ ," he finally says. Rose tries not to flinch at the word. "But she didn't say - "

"Come sit," Rose says, cutting him off. She gestures with her left hand, her rings catching the light. One gold, one iron.

Brock stands still a moment, and then follows her toward the dining room. Lizzy is in the kitchen, busying herself with turkey and side dishes and pie. Her parents and sisters and brothers and cousins and their children will all be arriving soon, and Rose will only tell this story once. Some of them already know its pieces, but none of them know the whole of it.

Brock is still looking at her like she's a ghost or a figment of his imagination. She offers him a glass of wine and then leans back in her chair. She knows all the things he wants to ask her, but she can tell he doesn't want to spook her. Whether that's manners or just instinct she isn't sure.

She asks him about his expeditions, about how he’d gotten started in this peculiar line of work, about his plans for the lost necklace. He invites her to come see where they'd found the wreck, to come _back_ to where they'd found it. He has things he can show her. Rose thinks she might just go. She would very much like to see that drawing again. 

And then, as her family gathers around them, she knows it's time. She wonders if Jack can hear her now, wherever he is. Rose closes her eyes and breathes deep. She catches the scents of fresh paint and polished floors, and then of rain and tobacco and ink. She’s ready to go back. 

She smiles as she begins to tell their story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title credit: "Time Will Tell' [Gregory Alan Isakov]  
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
